218: Balancing test coverage with test costs - Nicole Tietz-Sokolskaya
Nicole is a software engineer and writer, and recently wrote about the trade-offs we make when deciding which tests to write and how much testing is enough.
We talk about:
We talk about:
- Balancing schedule vs testing
- How much testing is the right about of testing
- Should code coverage be measured and tracked
- Good refactoring can reduce code coverage
- Is it worth testing error conditions?
- Are rare error codes ok to just monitor?
- API drift and autospec
- Mitigating risk
- Deciding what to test and what not to test
- Focus testing on key money-making features
- If there's a bug in this part of the code, how much business impact is there?
- Performance testing needs to approximately match real world workloads
- Cost of a service breaking vs the cost of creating, maintaining, and running tests
- Keeping test suites quick to minimize getting distracted
Links:
- Too much of a good thing: the trade-off we make with tests
- Load testing is hard, and the tools are... not great. But why?
- Yet Another Rust Resource (YARR!)
- Goodhart's law - "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure"
Learn pytest
- pytest is the number one test framework for Python.
- Learn the basics super fast with Hello, pytest!
- Then later you can become a pytest expert with The Complete pytest Course
- Both courses are at courses.pythontest.com
Creators and Guests
Guest
Nicole Tietz-Sokolskaya
Nicole is a software engineer and writer. She works as a principal software engineer at Remesh where her main responsibilities are performance, security, and backend systems using Python and Rust. She writes frequently about myriad topics on her blog. Outside of computers, she's kept busy with her family and all of life's other responsibilities.
